Performance of climate envelope models in retrodicting recent changes in bird population size from observed climatic change

Abstract

Twenty-five-year population trends of 42 bird species rare as breeders in the UK were examined in relation to changes in climatic suitability simulated using climatic envelope models. The effects of a series of potential 'nuisance' variables were also assessed. A statistically significant positive correlation was found across species between population trend and climate suitability trend. The demonstration that climate envelope models are able to retrodict species' population trends provides a valuable validation of their use in studies of the potential impacts of future climatic changes.